Mobility : Future Perspective

AJright comes with an interesting set of predictions in the mobility space – I mostly agree with his predictions and am listing a few that I strongly believe would happen:

Wireless PDAs, laptops with high speed wireless connections, and smartphones all have the ability to stretch the work-desk, making the world smaller for everyone. Some emerging technologies that may improve productivity, enhance entertainment, and even blur the line more with mobile computing items go like this:
- BlackBerry / Treo are already well enmeshed into corporate environments - within 2 years wireless standards such as 802.11n and WiMax will enable these connections to happen over a larger area, and even eliminate Internet inaccessibility in some areas.
- Wireless technologies will continue to compete for your wallet and air space. Cellular companies all over the world will either have to adapt their usage models to including VoIP plans, or be lost to the Vonage's & Skype's.
- The competitive wireless landscape will push fringe devices to the lower rungs of usage (meaning non-connected PDAs, phones that cannot access the Internet and act as a modem, and notebooks/tablets that have only limited versions of WiFi). PDAs shall morph into handheld connected terminals (GPS and VoIP probably being the next main features). Notebooks will continue to get smaller, and convertible TabletPCs may take a larger slice of the traditional notebook market share.
- PC/PDA makers may extend media managers / media players to support/include projector/projector capabilities - expensive flat screens and projector TV setups are replaced with just movie downloads from Comcast/Netflix/Blockbuster, etc. and a movie theater ready to go.
- The future of mobility sees the normal user taking advantage of large hard drives and advance screen types to offer their families and clients a "cheaper than going out" entertainment experience.
Project forward next five years:
- In the next year there will be at least one VoIP service offered by a major mobile carrier.
- More devices shall offer some kind of flash memory subsystem for backup purposes. We have already seen this with Palm and upcoming with Windows Mobile 5 PDAs.
- One laptop maker offering a fuel cell-powered laptop before the end of spring.
- Usable web browser on phone and PDA. XML will further break down the boundaries of document sharing, and blogs will continue to push the realism and speed of news reports.